Pliskova, One for the Future

Though Karolina Pliskova lost to Angelique Kerber in the U.S. Open women’s singles final, the Czech is a GREAT PROSPECT provided she stays injury-free.

Thanks to my good pal HasuMasrani, I was able to tick off another item from my bucket list of sporting events. The last time I had been to the U.S. Open tennis was in 1978 when it was at Forest Hills. At that time, we were in New York to play an exhibition match for the Rest of the World against the American All Stars, a team that was made of mostly players from the Caribbean who had settled in the USA. Our team was captained by the incomparable Garfield Sobers, and had Bishan Singh Bedi, Zaheer Abbas, Barry Richards, Alan Knott, Greg Chappell, Majid Khan, John Snow and Tony Greig, to name a few. We played at the Shea Stadium in front of a large turnout, and we had a great time. The only problem was getting paid for it. The organiser was a huge man of Caribbean descent, who distributed cheques to some and cash to others. When one of the guys receiving the cheque asked a bit timidly, “What if the cheque bounces?” the organiser replied in typical West Indian style, “If it bounces, hook it maan”.